FastCompany.com: What A Dead Squirrel Taught Me About Value Pricing

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What A Dead Squirrel Taught Me About Value Pricing

By Neil Baron

Many companies worry about the commoditization of their offerings and their inability to justify premium pricing--but if you figure out how to take care of your customers' "dead squirrels," you're golden.

Or, copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.fastcompany.com/3000999/what-dead-squirrel-taught-me-about-value-pricing

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10 things Android does really well

I believe that Android has a number of things that need to come up to speed for it to remain a long-term player in the mobile space, but there are also a lot of things I think Android gets right. This is a list of 10 things Android does well that provide it with competitive advantages.

1: Hardware access

The Android development model’s wide open nature allows app developers to do things (or do them more easily) that they can’t do on other platforms. As a result, entire categories of applications can be written for Android but not for other platforms. If that is what you need (and for many folks it is), Android is a winner.

2: Variety of device types

Because OEMs can access the source code and modify it to fit their needs, and because of the Linux-underpinnings of Android, it is relatively easy for Android to find its way into all sorts of things that are not smartphones or tablets. When you think of Android not as a phone OS but as a compact Linux distribution with specialization in certain capabilities, a lot of avenues for use open themselves up.

3: User modifications

Android phones are much easier for end users to directly control with software. Its use of certain common computing standards and ideas (for example, presenting its storage as a standard USB thumb drive when attached to a PC) makes it easy to make those modifications, put data onto the device outside the applications themselves, and do much more with the phone.

4: In-depth system information

Again, what we see with Android is that applications (and users) have much more access to the device’s guts. While this may not be necessarily useful for the typical user, the capability certainly does not hurt, and power users and developers get a lot of mileage out of it.

5: Multitasking

The Android multitasking model is identical to a PC’s. Although this has drawbacks (particularly around resource usage), there is no substitute for it if you want to write certain types of applications. Sure, other systems may allow tricks like push notifications, but they really can’t do everything that a full multitasking system like Android can do. Again, this speaks to Android enabling applications that just aren’t possible on other platforms.

6: Support for new hardware concepts

If you have a great idea for a hardware device, and that idea goes outside the established hardware universe, Android is your only real option as a manufacturer. Apple and RIM completely control the iOS and BlackBerry hardware, respectively. And with WP7, Microsoft has established certain baselines that devices must meet. While it doesn’t forbid going above and beyond it, it is much harder for an OEM to do something like the Droid Bionic with WP7 than it is with Android.

7: Widgets

The Android widgets allow for some really neat functionality to be put directly on the “desktop” of the device. Yes, the WP7 Live Tiles are a great way of providing a basic at-a-glance piece of functionality, but the widgets go so much further than that. For example, as much as I like my WP7 phone’s Facebook integration, the Facebook widget that came with the MotoBlur UI is phenomenally easy to use and is not possible on anything other than Android.

8: Google integration

If you have brought Google’s services into your workflow in a significant way, Android does a good job of bringing those services to your phone, tablet, and other devices. Other OSes have their own integrations, but they are with systems that right now do not have much traction or usage outside those integrations. Lots of people are heavily invested with Google’s products long before they buy a smartphone, so for them, Android is a natural extension of their work habits.

9: Carrier compatibility

At this point, Android is ubiquitous. Every carrier offers Android phones and usually has a good variety of them to boot. If you make an investment into the Android ecosystem, you can be sure that even if your device can’t transfer, your knowledge and integrations will go to the new device pretty smoothly. As iPhone owners could tell you, before non-AT&T carriers had the iPhone, it was pretty miserable to be tied to just one carrier.

10: Price

The cost of Android itself ranges from “free” to “cheap” depending on the OEM and who they are paying patent protection to. (I know, that’s a mess!) While the cost of the OS itself isn’t a major component of the cost of making a phone, Android has been easy for phone makers to work with, so they can put it on a wide range of phones at different price points and still make a profit. This allows you to get an Android phone at a very attractive price.

Link:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-things-android-does-really-well/2848?tag=nl.e101

Meditation - Then and Now!!!!

See this video.....

Cybersecurity Report: 84% Believe Risk is Higher than 1 Year Ago

With the annual Black Hat (Vegas) conference providing extra focus on cybersecurity this week, but also eclipsing most other news, I want to call attention to the EastWest Institute publication of their report on the Second Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit: Mobilizing for International Action.
The EWI summit, held in London at the beginning of June, attracted more than 450 government, industry and technical leaders from 43 countries to craft new cybersecurity solutions.
CSOs, CIOs, IT professionals, academics, and international policy-makers working to maintain a healthy Internet and guarding resources against cyber threats may went to take a look at the wide range of topics covered in the the EWI summit report. Fortunately, the report is readable from the web, with a solid table of contents and lots of quotes and graphics to help you navigate through the information and find areas of special interest.
EWI held their first Cybersecurity Summit in 2010, and EWI’s cybersecurity initiative has gained participation from the United States, Chinese, Russian and Indian governments, along with other members of the Cyber40 (an informal grouping of the world’s most digitally-advanced nations), academic leaders, and industry professionals.
“The largest roadblock to cyber solutions is a lack of trust,” says John Mroz, EWI President. “EWI’s trademark for three decades has been bringing the people who need to work together into the same room to craft solutions to particular issues of common concern. Nowhere is this needed more than in the cybersecurity arena.”
To highlight how participant’s see the cybersecurity challenge, the report shares (flip to page 7) some interesting survey data from the 2010 and 2011 summits:

• 84% think that the cybersecurity risk we face today is higher than one year ago
• 61% doubt that their country could defend against a sophisticated Cyber attack
• 54% doubt their <business, organization, agency> could defend against a sophisticated Cyber attack
• 70% believe that international policy and regulations lag far behind technology advances
• 81% agree that bold steps are needed immediately to address lack of trust in ICT development and supply chain integrity

That last point, which I sometimes refer to as “Trusted Supply Chain” issues, was also one of the key areas of focus for Microsoft participation at the summit and in the recent post by Eric T. Werner, Global Cyber Supply Chain Management a Principal Security Strategist with the Trustworthy Computing group here at Microsoft.
The 50-page report includes information from the keynote presentation on Supply Chain Risk Management delivered by Scott Charney, Corporate Vice President, Trustworthy Computing, including his observation that: “The Internet is different in the sense that you don’t have to put assets at risk to engage in espionage. Spies can sit in their home country and exfiltrate terabytes of data quickly.” 

Keeping malware away - how do some countries do it?

Tim Rains over at Trustworthy Computing (TwC) has just concluded a six-part series in which he took a closer look at the threat landscape in locations that have the lowest infection rates in the world. Using data from our Security Intelligence Report, the series investigates why the same countries and regions consistently pop up as having relatively low malware infection rates, as normalized using a metric calledComputers Cleaned per Mille (CCM).

The series is available in the following articles:

• Lessons from Some of the Least Malware Infected Countries in the World – Part 1
• Austria - Lessons from Some of the Least Malware Infected Countries in the World – Part 2
• Finland - Lessons from Some of the Least Malware Infected Countries in the World – Part 3
• Germany - Lessons from Some of the Least Malware Infected Countries in the World – Part 4
• Japan - Lessons from Some of the Least Malware Infected Countries in the World – Part 5
• Finale - Lessons from Some of the Least Malware Infected Countries in the World – Part 6

What was commonly found in these locations that have low malware infection rates includes the following:

1. A strong relationship between public and private entities that led to efficient and proactive responses to malware threats
2. The presence of CERTs, ISPs, and other entities that monitor malware that enable rapid response
3. An intelligent and well-trained IT culture where system administrators are able to sufficiently respond to threats
4. The establishment of policies and processes to quarantine infected computers and prevent malware from spreading across networks
5. Education campaigns and media participation that raise awareness of security issues
6. Low software piracy rates and timely and widespread use of Windows Update and Microsoft Update

A big thank you to Tim and the TwC, who collated all this information to help us understand what certain countries and regions are doing right regarding keeping malware away. We strongly encourage users to employ the best practices found in the countries that have these low malware infection rates.

- MMPC

Weblink:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2011/08/25/keeping-malware-away-how-do-some-countries-do-it.aspx

Critical Career Paths for IT Pros

To leverage the benefits of the cloud, IT organizations will have to change their skillsets in short order, and that means investing in training, consulting and hiring. Where do you fit in?

Editor's Note: Align Your Skills to Meet the New Demand
IT professionals who can adapt their skills for the new requirements of cloud computing will find immediate and long-term payoff.

New Roles and Skills for Cloud Computing
This is a good time to put some lines in the sand around what skills are required as the cloud creeps into our IT universe.

• Microsoft Cloud Services: Training and Certification

Network World: Steer Your Career to the Cloud
Cloud computing creates new career paths for savvy IT professsionals.

• Network World: 10 Cloud Career Skills

TechNet Magazine: Bulletproof Your IT Career
There are some positive steps you can take to solidify and advance your career, even in these challenging times.

TechNet Magazine: Develop Your Brand
There are some positive steps you can take to solidify and advance your career, even in these challenging times.

Survey Results: Cloud Computing as an Engine of Growth
The objective of the survey is better understand IT decision-makers across multiple industries, and their current and planned adoptions of cloud-based technology solutions to grow revenue, launch new lines of business, hire staff and innovate.

InformationWeek's 2011 Salary Survey: Why Are IT Pros So Worried?
After a decade of hard knocks, IT pros earn modest raises, InformationWeek's annual U.S. IT Salary Survey shows, but they face plenty of uncertainty ahead.

TechAmerica Foundation Report: Cloud First, Cloud Fast -- Recommendations for Innovation, Leadership and Job Creation (.pdf)
The Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD2) developed the report at the encouragement of the Federal Chief Information Officer and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Commission's mandate was to generate recommendations for accelerating adoption of cloud technologies.

Join the Community

• Microsoft Private Cloud Dojo
• Cloud Nation

IE users have lower IQ than users of other Web Browsers

A recent study links intelligence test results with browser usage — and the results don't look good for users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, especially its older versions.

The study, titled "Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage" by Canadian company AptiQuant, compiled IQ test scores of 101,326 individuals older than the age of 16 and divided them into groups according to the browser they use.

The results are fascinating. Users of Internet Explorer 6 have an average IQ score barely more than 80; Firefox and Chrome users fare much better, with average IQ scores of around 110, while Opera and Camino users have an average IQ score more than 120.

It's also interesting to note that average IQ scores of IE6 users were significantly higher in 2006, and that the IQ scores get better with newer versions of IE.

Internet Explorer 6 has long been a thorn in the side of developers who hated it for its non-compliance with web standards, while users struggled with its many security flaws. This new study will probably induce more mockery of the ancient (but still sometimes found on older computers) browser and its users, but it's probably not telling us that much about the browser itself — it's about unwillingness to upgrade to a new version of any software.

The study concludes that "individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers." It's only logical that users with a higher IQ are more likely to experiment, choose a different software version or variant (notice that users of IE with Chrome frame score very high on IQ tests) or listen to upgrade suggestions and security advice.

In March, Microsoft started a campaign to get users to stop using Internet Explorer 6. But did it take into account the fact that many IE6 users tend to have lower than average IQ scores? Maybe that's the key to finally getting rid of the world's most hated web browser.

"Individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. … Now that we have a statistical pattern on the continuous usage of incompatible browsers, better steps can be taken to eradicate this nuisance," the study concludes.